Defeat Marquis de la Montalban in Rogue or Swash Buckler Mode

Achievement Guide for Sword Master

Achievement won on 14 Apr 12TA Score for this game: 805
Posted on 16 April 12 at 03:23

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I highly recommend you start a game as Apprentice with fencing as your skill. You can advance the difficulty level when you divide plunder, but you will want to play most of the game at apprentice level in order to cut down on the frustration as you want to do the least amount of sword fighting on the higher difficulties as possible.

This is accomplished at the end of the Path of Revenge. For deatails, see the guide(s) for the associated achievement:

You must have a sufficient amount of plunder in order to be given the opportunity to advance to a higher difficulty. I recommend at least 10,000 gold, though you can cetainly get by with less, especially at the lower difficulty levels. Also, your character's health plays a factor in dividing the plunder. With the two items that improve your life expectancy, I was able to divide plunder at very poor and failing health without being forced into retirement -- the character was in his early 40s.

I recommend you get to the rank of Duke on Apprentice and don't bump up the difficulty to Journeyman until after finding your Lost Aunt. After you get the map to your Lost Grandfather's location, or after finding him, divide the plunder and go to Adventurer difficulty. Since you have found all your lost relatives, you should now have a completed map to a Lost City, which will have at least 50,000 gold associated with its discovery. Go to the location on the map and then divide the plunder and increase the difficulty to Rogue.

You should now have the location of the Marquis de la Montalban and no real impediments between you and him. A good crew and flagship will give you a chance to start the duel with an edge, but even with that advantage, this is a difficult fight.

I highly recommend using a rapier in this fight. The Marquis uses a rapier and even with a skill in fencing and all the items that benefitted duels, he was faster than I was -- though my character was in his 40s. Perhaps if you reach the Marquis earlier in your character's career, it will be easier.

To defeat the Marquis I recommend an advanced fencing technique: the feint. The Marquis has excellent defense and will punish you mercilessly with counterattacks. However, if you feint, he will be wide open for a quick alternate attack. For example, swipe laterally for a thrust, and then quickly swipe downward for a sweep. If you are successful, he will attempt to block your thrust and you will attack his legs freely.

This alone will not defeat the Marquis, but it is half the battle. You must also successfully defend his attacks to give yourself ample opportunity to use feints without fear of being struck during the slightly lengthier attack time. Unfortunately, he has a very quick strike and I reorted to a bit of guesswork on defense, but I found he thrusts often after you successfully use a thrust feint to mask your attack.

A warning on feints: if your feint is not perceived as a threat the Marquis will easily avoid your actual attack and you will find yourself open to a counter. You can be too fast feinting after you have defended on of his blows -- however, I found trying to simply attack, rather than feint, after a successful defense most often lead to the Marquis recovering in time to defend my attack. It will take a few tries to get the hang of it.

If you fail in your duel, you can either load from the autosave or simply try again immediately. There seems to be no tangible penalty to losing in this duel.

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